


The Clingy Bonus Job

by Arithanas



Category: Leverage
Genre: Arguing, Case Fic, Friendship, Gen, POV Multiple, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21794056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/pseuds/Arithanas
Summary: It was a hard choice, but Eliot and Parker had to go behind Hardison's back to maximize profits.
Relationships: Alec Hardison & Parker & Eliot Spencer
Comments: 22
Kudos: 55
Collections: 2019 Leverage Secret Santa Exchange





	The Clingy Bonus Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [A_Taupe_Fox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Taupe_Fox/gifts).



The room behind the BridgePort Brewing Co. was mostly dark in the wee hours of the morning. A casual observer could be forgiven for not noticing the two persons sitting by the command table. They were both dressed in sweats and hold mugs in their hands. Their heads were so close that they almost touched.

“I don’t like it, Parker,” Eliot said with a glance toward the wall of screens. 

Parker looked at Eliot over the brim of her mug. The street lights poured from the high windows, but there was not enough light to know if Eliot was on one of his funny moods or if he was truly against the idea. Years of working together usually allowed Parker to read his face like an open book, but such a critical skill had failed her today.

“This is our only chance to get the thing.” She took a sip from her mug, and Parker could practically feel the caffeine in the hot liquid like a hit to the head. “You know we can’t get this done any other way. Hardison keeps an eye on our accounts like a hawk.”

“I don’t like going behind Hardison’s back,” Eliot insisted and looked at Parker. “He trusts us.”

Parker made a grimace and lifted the mug again. Years ago, they had learned the true price of broken loyalty and she was not trifling when she made this risky proposal. Since Nate and Sophie had left, Parker was used to Eliot backing her up as the mastermind. Sure they clashed occasionally, but Eliot always had at least a hint of a reason when he raised a fuss. This time he had nothing but a misguided sense of honor.

“We are not failing him. Deceiving him, maybe. Blindsiding him, totally. But we have to, right?” Parker stopped to take another sip. “I could pickpocket the cash we'd need in a lazy afternoon, but we can’t just go into a store to buy a military-grade piece of technology, can we? Besides, it’s like some kind of blind luck has guided us here. The dates are right; the profit would be more than just money.”

“We are working for a client here,” Eliot reminded her and turned to face Parker. “We can’t put that at risk by moonlighting on our own.”

“There is no foul, Eliot,” Parker insisted and brushed her own bangs away. It crossed her mind that they needed trimming. “We always extract a bit of profit from each job.”

“To keep Leverage going.” 

“Same difference.” Parker fought the need to roll her eyes. “We are taking our cut in kind instead of cash this time.”

Eliot looked at Parker with a strange look on his face. Parker knew right there she had made the right argument.

“Just this once, Parker. Because we need this thing.”

“If this plan works, I promise I will never ask anything like this again.”

Hardison sat on his chair and twisted the cap of a bottle of Squeeze Orange Soda. Parker was already inside the building, pretending to be in an induction course for a new wave of sales reps. Eliot had just climbed down the van, in full business suit, BlueTooth handsfree earpiece, freshly brushed hair, and glasses. 

The button cam on Eliot’s jacket was jumping and Hardison tried to steady the image before he noticed Eliot was _sauntering_. Hardison smiled at the image. For some strange reason Hardison couldn’t begin to fathom, Eliot loved to play the obstructionist auditor.

“Hey, Eliot! Careful with the camera,” Hardison advised before taking the first sip of the day. “If you move too briskly it will fall down.”

Before Eliot could acknowledge him, Parker’s voice chimed in through the coms. “Don’t destroy another camera!”

Hardison felt his brow wrinkle. It wasn’t like Parker to care about their hardware enough to pester Eliot over it. The camera feed stopped and Eliot’s voice came barking through the coms.

“I don’t destroy cameras for fun, Parker!” The image in Hardison’s monitor was shaking as if Eliot was gesticulating madly. “It happened last time because someone was out of position. Yes! I’m all right!” Eliot’s voice jumped a few octaves and the generous chest of a person dressed in a designer shirt appeared on Hardison’s monitor. “T-t-y-l. I was just arguing with someone at the office. Thank you for your concern.”

“I’ll show you ‘out of position’...” Parker hissed in response. She was not wearing a camera because they didn’t need to capture any details of her crime.

“Team, let's not blow our cover before we start the con!” Hardison interjected before he sipped a bit more of soda.

He tried to sound nonchalant, but it was not like his team to bicker this way without any apparent motive. Eliot crossed the threshold of the building while still making small talk to the woman who caught him arguing with Parker and Hardison noticed it was time to feed Eliot’s credentials to Coregenix’s database so his backstory would hold together. He was too busy to notice how Eliot’s button camera rolled down the street. 

Lawrence Strickland was a good manager, or so he thought, at the very least no serious complaint had ever been filed against him. The man who currently sat in front of Larry’s desk took out another adhesive note and rolled it as he had done with the other seven he rolled since he entered the Production Manager’s office. That annoying tic was unnerving, to say the least.

“As I was saying...” 

The man stopped to rip another note from the block. They were the regular faint yellow adhesive notes that you could find in any office.

“It’s just a third-party routine audit. Someone has been sweating OHSA's new recommendations on our side. New work safety manual and new work orders. Seven,” he paused to let out an aggravated sigh. “Training courses. Lots of toolbox chats. Then we noticed we haven't checked...” 

There was another pause as the man—well, the external auditor—focused his attention to roll the note. Apparently, the corners refused to line up as he wanted. Larry heard the auditor cuss in a low, angry voice. “Not at all.” 

The auditor rolled the paper with a little flick. Larry started to think that the auditor’s obsession with the adhesive notes betrayed a tweaker in recovery. That plus the auditor's manic demeanor and long hair.

“That your side of the operation, that is, that your upstream processes are OSHA compliant. I just need to observe your operations, check some logs… do you think we can do a fire drill later today?”

Larry shivered when the man raised his eyes to meet his own and smiled. Any other manager, someone with less experience, might have confused that smile for a friendly one. The lips were tense, but the eyes were too still behind those glasses. For a second, Lawrence Strickland was sure that the mild, neurotic, tic-ridden auditor had killed before.

“Of course.” Larry agreed because that smile warned him some heads might roll, maybe even his, if the auditor were denied. “That’s not a problem.”

The auditor nodded slightly, widened his smile and peeled another adhesive note slowly without taking his eyes off of Lawrence.

“We need a better way out!” Parker hissed through the coms. “Someone didn’t case the building properly and all the exits are connected to alarms!”

Eliot interrupted his speech to let out an aggravated sigh. Hardison knew that sound and took his feet off the table and checked the map. If Parker was right—and time had taught him to never doubt Parker— the local police would be on top of them in ten and the fire department even sooner. It was not like Eliot to let such a simple detail of the case pass by without checking.

“Were you checking out the reception desk girl last time you were there, too?” Hardison asked, a bit incensed because Eliot teasing-for-sport had been in the way too frequently in the past.

“Dammit, Hardison!” Eliot protested in a rushed grumble before saying more clearly. “Not at all.” 

“Well, man, you better pick up the slack,” Hardison knew he should be smiling. The odds of catching Eliot flat-footed were about the same as winning the lottery. “Because we have the best thief in the world with her lovely fingers in the cookie jar and you have already burned your entry.”

A rustle of paper followed Hardison’s taunt before Eliot continued with his speech.

“Hey, man,” Hardison commented as he received information from the Trojan Horse Parker just had installed into the blind network. “Keep it in character. This kind of stuff happens all the time.”

“Are you tired? Is that it?” Parker interjected with a rushed whisper. “You are getting old and that’s why you are dragging your feet?”

If Hardison wasn’t too busy sorting through files he would warn her not to poke the bear. 

The new wave of sales reps, all dressed in white onesies, was getting ready to take a tour of the sterile assembly line of the new series of thingamajigs. Ten eager people checked each other to ensure all the hair and all the clothes were properly covered. They also made sure all the pockets were closed. They finished their preparation with a generous spray of antistatic solution.

In a single line, the candidates passed through a metal detector and were handed a facemask since all the components were sensitive to humidity. Parker smiled as she swapped a block of yellow adhesive notes with a remote techy thingy at the reception desk in her way to the assembly lines. 

“Are you tired? Is that it?” Parker conveyed through the coms, hoping Eliot caught her drift. “You are getting old and that’s why you are dragging your feet?”

Eliot was very quiet on the other side, even Hardison kept his silence. They had to tread carefully from here on out if Alec was quiet that meant he was suspecting something. Now, to the task at hand.

They needed to sabotage a relay inside the cleanroom because something something related to hacking the vault where their client's prototype was being held; the patent was not a problem, but the prototype was too expensive and their client couldn’t replicate years of investment and research before their day in court. The same vault held their secondary target. 

Over their heads, a pre-recorded tape was spitting facts as their guide signaled to the different parts of the conveyor belt and the workers. No one noticed the trail of bright adhesive notes over different panels Hardison had designed as their target. Eliot had shown Hardison how quick he could reroute the panels. Parker knew that part was safe on Eliot’s hands.

Parker smiled behind her mask and looked at the assembly line. 

“I think we can set the fire drill for two o’clock this afternoon,” Lawrence Strickland commented as he wrangled the auditor to the prep room. By now, Larry knew his name was Carl Gallifrey but his brain refused to acknowledge another label than ‘the auditor’ and the auditor didn’t seem to be in the least bit of a hurry to get through this painful process.

The auditor looked at him, sighed and adjusted his glasses as if Larry had said something incredibly senseless.

“Anything wrong?”

“Five. It should be at five,” the auditor said as he hooked his pen to the clip of his fancy, leather cover writing board folder. As soon as his hand was free, he tore out another adhesive note. “Two reasons for this, you see? First, if we make a fire drill at two, some of your employees would miss their lunch hour and you don’t want to handle whistle-blower complaints that involve safety-related work hour violations? Or do you?” the auditor asked and rolled the piece of paper with one hand. “Second, in this industry, most of the events or near-events occur by the shift change, so it would be closer to the likeliest reality if we test your preparations toward the emergency plan, pursuant to clause seven paragraph four point four closer to that time.”

“Yes, of course,” Larry agreed, but inside the privacy of his own mind fumed a ton of tasks he would need to complete for that particular time frame. “We can still take the tour now and have a working lunch?”

“Of course,” the auditor replied and rolled another adhesive note.

“Dammit, Parker!” Eliot grumbled on coms. “These notes are smaller than the ones I carry!”

“Just don’t draw attention to them!”

Hardison munched the burger he bought half an hour ago when he went to retrieve the button camera. He should be ready by the time Parker made her move, which must be around lunchtime, as they'd planned. One light on his screen blinked rapidly and then went out. Eliot had disabled the panel with the plastic screwdriver inside the leather binding of his clipboard. The man had skills with tools…

The comms were spewing the drone of the sales rep lesson and some tapping. Parker was probably drumming a pen against the desk. 

Another blinking light meant another bridge down. Hardison sucked his soda through a straw and smiled. Finally, the job was running as smoothly as it was planned.

“Number 1207,” Hardison informed Parker over the coms. “Go do your magic, mama!”

Parker, coat hanging from her arm, walked on high heels through the corridor. A big smile was plastered across her face. The sales rep group had just disbanded for lunch and she was on her way to the office they provided Eliot for the documental research part of the audit. Eliot, by the way, was walking in her direction, berating the poor Production Manager to the best of his ability.

For the briefest of moments, their eyes met. Parker brushed her vest to signal Eliot that she would need a badge.

“I’m sure you have a plan to make sure the cleanroom has to recycle ventilation,” Eliot said with an even tone and slapped his clipboard against the shirt of the manager. “I just wonder if your DVC’s up to code. As you know, the proper rate should be…”

Parker passed behind them and, without turning her back to them, she picked the Production Manager badge and Eliot’s plastic screwdriver. For a hitter, Eliot had the silk touch of a pickpocketer sometimes. 

Fake smiles and a quick pace led her to the door. The office they had lent Eliot was small, with only enough space for a desk with its computer, a tall pile of scrap paper and two chairs. She closed the door behind her and took her office disguise off. Eliot had left an antistatic spray on top of the desk and a pair of gloves inside a bag with a strap. Her targets were sensitive to static. Out of habit, she checked the front pocket of her working clothes; empty and properly closed.

After hiding her clothes under the desk, Parker used the plastic screwdriver Hardison had 3D printed for the job and opened the vent shaft. The trip was a short one and the colder the metal below her knees got, the closer she was. After five minutes of crawling through the shaft, she found the only vent to the vault. Luckily, the hasp was a simple butterfly nut.

“In position,” Parker informed her team as soon as the ventilation cover was loose. “Hardison, you got the cameras?”

“They don’t see a thing!” Hardison confirmed cheerfully. “I even have the code to the vault!”

“Way to take credit for someone else’s job!” Eliot protested but immediately changed his tone. “I noticed in your register that the OHSA training was an idea of your predecessor…”

“OK. OK!” Hardison agreed and stopped to take a gulp from his Orange Squeeze Soda. Parker could hear him gulp. “But it’s not like you had killed yourself taking that information if the mark _li-te-ra-ly_ handed it to you!”

Parker got out with a small tumble while her team bickered. Two more steps and she was in front of the vault. For a moment, the idea of cracking the vault passed her mind, but every second saved here was a second Hardison won’t notice their double-cross.

“What’s the code?” She asked, wondering if Eliot had anticipated this precise situation. These kinds of details were Eliot’s grumpy way of showing his support.

Hardison repeated the number twice, but Parker was inside before he started the second run. The walls were filled with tiny doors, each of them furnished with a barcode reader and a lock. Parker smiled at the containers like a girl looking at the candy store display. 

“Focus…” Parker mumbled and beelined to the case 11314 and aligned Lawrence Strickland’s card against the reader.

The light by the door shone green and Parker unscrewed the end of the plastic screwdriver where Eliot had hidden a set of disposable, plastic lockpicks. 

“I’ll be checking some documents and I should have the report ready by the time you run the fire drill,” Eliot, in his role of Carl G., said to the Production Manager.

Parker, still lying prone on the vent shaft, tossed the used identity card toward the shoes near the door. The laminated identification slid soundlessly over the clean floor. 

“Look down!” Parker hissed angrily since Eliot didn’t take the hint.

Eliot adjusted his glasses with the left hand and, with a very calculated movement, put his hand where the badge should be. 

“Oops! Your badge…” Eliot said and bent forward to pick up the badge.

The Production Manager did the same and their heads met halfway with the expected result. Parker had to put her hands in front of her mouth to muffle the surprised sound that struggled to get out. 

“Oh, my bad,” said the Production Manager, too busy being courteous to notice how Eliot lifted his wallet, his watch, and his fancy pen. Parker felt inordinately proud of his prowess.

“Don’t worry about it,” Eliot said, feigning to rub his forehead just to put the stolen pen behind his ear.

As the Production Manager reattached his badge, Eliot hid the wallet and the watch in his pocket. They faced each other with the embarrassed half-smile of two grown-up men caught doing something silly. Parker could see how the Production Manager noticed something—he even pointed at Eliot’s ear—but in the end, he just shook his head and turned around. Eliot closed the door and gesticulated madly to make Parker crawl out the vent.

Parker, still wearing the antistatic gloves, took out the prototype wrapped in a silver conductive antistatic bag. It was small, probably only two inches. Eliot produced a cupcake in its little transparent box and a spare red cupcake liner. With his eyes, Eliot pointed at a cardboard box, open and lined with antistatic foam. Taking the hint, Parker put their second prize inside while Eliot hid the prototype between the cupcake and the liner.

“You are too quiet, fam,” Hardison complained in their ears as Eliot handed Parker a plastic card. “You are not killing each other, are you?”

They looked at each other and nodded their agreement. Parker rushed to redo her costume. 

“Parker is getting dressed and I have to hide the prototype, Hardison!” Eliot replied, pleating some misprinted pages he took from the scrap paper pile with a speed reminiscent of the one he used to chop vegetables. “Do you want a play-by-play of this?”

“I’m happy knowing you are not bickering anymore.”

“We don’t need to bicker,” Parker chimed in, closing the buttons of her sensible white shirt. Her eyes looked at how Eliot joined all the adhesive notes before closing a white cardboard box over it. “I can watch Eliot and he’s doing well right now.”

Eliot rolled his eyes and sent something to print before turning to Parker, showing her the final product and closing the lid. Parker raised her hands as if she were about to clap and Eliot reached to put his hands between hers. His expression took the wind out of her sails and nearly made her facepalm. Eliot let out a gruff sound, put the box in her hands, and send something to print from the computer they lend him to work.

Parker pulled his sleeve and showed Eliot her open hand. Eliot took the pen from his ear, passed it to her and showed her four fingers and made a slashing motion. Parker nodded, put the box and the pen under her coat and moved to the door.

“Sweet…” Eliot mumbled, pleased because they can still communicate without words.

“What is it?” Hardison asked with a hint of anxiety in his voice.

“Nothing,” Eliot grumbled and moved to the door. “I just need to get Parker an exit. Hey, you!”

A beleaguered office assistant heeded the call, as they usually do: with a fluster and a vague sign to ask if they are the ones shouted at. They are better than E-1s at taking burdens they shouldn't be picking up.

“Yes, you!” Eliot grumbled and left the small office. “Where are those papers I sent to the printer?”

Parker got out right behind him and walked in the opposite direction. They had done it so many times before they could fool security cameras.

4:25 in the afternoon. Eliot walked out of his office, coat folded over his arm, with the cupcake in his hand. The other hand was busy with his briefcase. He climbed down the stairs and kept his eyes focused on the way in front of him.

4:28 Parker made her way to the parking lot, opening all the doors with the Production Manager’s card. The plastic screwdriver was disposed of in the incinerator chute five minutes ago. As she climbed down the last flight of stairs, she let her hair down and approached the fire alarm pull station. The only one that hadn’t been automatized according to the documents Hardison had stolen from Coregenix’s database.

4:30 Eliot stood in the lobby, smiling almost paternally to the teenager at the reception desk. The fire alarm rocked the building and people started to pour to the main entrance. Cupcake in hand, Eliot walked to the metal detector and set it off. One of the security guards started to make his way toward him, but Eliot, without breaking his stride, showed him the stolen watch. The guard let it be since this was an emergency situation.

4:32 Hardison jumped into Lucille’s driver’s seat and kicked the gears, cursing and ranting on the coms. The fire alarm came a lot earlier than it was expected. At the same time, Parker used the Production Manager’s card to open the parking lot gate.

4:37 Eliot stood by Lawrence Strickland, muttering praises at how orderly and quickly the fire drill was proceeding. With all the skills Parker had installed on him, he returned Larry his watch. The watch was not expensive, but it was engraved and Eliot didn’t want any of that guilt.

4:38 Parker and Eliot mixed with the crowd and walked to the corner where Hardison waited for them. Parker tossed Eliot the white box, Eliot tossed his briefcase and the cupcake to her. They climbed into Lucille and started their escape.

4:45 The Fire Department finally found the sabotaged alarm that kept sounding way longer than it should. An ordinary rubber band held Lawrence Strickland’s pen in place, jamming the pull tab.

5:10 Lawrence Strickland entered the Auditor’s office. On the desk, there was a raving report on their Coregenix’s OHSA compliance decorated with a small flower made of rolled up notes. In the field reserved for Auditor’s commentaries the line “but the vault security is sorely lacking” could be read.

6:45 PIA short-term parking lot. Fifteen minutes before delivery.

“I don’t want to complain, people,” Hardison started his complaint before Lucille’s engine stopped properly. “You two fought all morning and then you went all silent. It’s kind of creepy and something is not right. Do you want to come clean?”

“Come clean?” Eliot’s voice sounded almost offended. 

Hardison looked at the rearview mirror. Eliot was sitting in his chair, with his hands low, slightly bent forward. The coat was on the back of the seat, the tie was coiled next to the keyboard, but he kept the glasses on his face. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

“It was just an ordinary job,” Parker said and extended her legs over the dashboard. 

Those were some legs worthy of being seen at all times and Hardison almost fell for it, but Parker’s legs were not enough to distract him. She was toying with the cupcake.

“This was no ordinary job. What’s the reason for this little tiff?”

“Dammit, Hardison!” Eliot exploded and lurched forward to occupy the space between the seats. “We are human. We are allowed to have a bad day!”

“Yes!” Parker shrieked by his side. “Even a birthday like this one can be a bad day!”

Hardison recoiled toward the steering wheel, surprised by the vigor of their denial. Before the last thing Parker said could sink in his brain, Parker presented him with the cupcake, its small candle already flaming. Eliot, scowling deeper than ever, offered him a box wrapped in printed sheets topped with a huge chrysanthemum made of yellow adhesive notes.

“Happy birthday, man,” Eliot mumbled as he took the glasses off. “Open your gift before Parker starts to sing.”

“Hey!” Parker exclaimed offended as Hardison blew the flame out on the candle before it singed Lucille’s roof lining. “Hardison likes when I sing!”

“Probably!” Eliot conceded with the same incensed tone. Hardison extended his hand to the dashboard to retrieve Eliot’s pocket knife. “But no one likes to hear ‘Happy Birthday’ with missing words!”

Eliot and Parker kept bickering about the song while Hardison did his best to open the box without ruining the beautiful wrapping work. Inside a nest of antistatic foam rested one of the most sought after processors in the market. One that was not available yet to the general public. Without missing a beat, Eliot asked for his pocket knife back with a soft tap on Hardison’s shoulder; he probably felt naked without it. Parker took advantage of Hardison’s shifting closer and Eliot’s rant to kiss her hacker on the cheek.

Hardison sat there, listening to the people he loved most arguing over a trivial matter. That was the sound of love in his book.


End file.
